finance committee hearing room is the senior senator from new york, charles schumer. thank you so much for helping us break this story. thanks for joining us. >> good evening, rachel. >> what's going to happen tomorrow in your committee with these public option amendments? >>ness well, tomorrow is really the first day of the fight. it won't be the last. we are going to offer senator rockefeller and myself two public option amendments, and have a finance committee vote. your viewers should know that this is the beginning of the fight, because the finance committee is more conservative than the senate as a whole, the finance democrats tend to come from rural and redder states. we'll then move to the floor of the senate, where the public option has a better chance than in the finance committee, and then we'll move to conference committee with the house where it has a better chance still, because the house has been very strong. and my prediction is that at the end of the day, we will have some form of public option and a good form of public option in the final bill. tomorrow's fight, to be honest

with you, is uphill, given the member of the finance committee, but we want to start the debate, because the more the public hears what the public option is, they really like it. >> why do you think that getting senators in the finance committee on the record, starting tomorrow, on the public option is a first step toward getting one in the final bill? do you think people voting right now is the best strategy? >> were well, we do, because the way the public option is snuffed, we all know the insurance industry doesn't like it, it brings real competition to them in a way that no one else does. right now in most markets, you have two or three insurance companies, and nobody else. and the public option, not having to make a profit, that's about 10, 12% of the income, not having to do all this advertising and merchandising. that's another 10 to 20% of the income. we'll have a real advantage. but the public doesn't know it, or propaganda from the right and from the insurance industries is convince people they're going to be forced to get rid of their present health care and go to, quote, a government plan.

it's an option. and you have the option to go to a public option, even if you stay in a private insurance, and you prefer that. the public option will make it better, because it will force the insurance companies to bring the cost down. and is so by having this discussion with the nation's eyes focused on the finance committee and on the debate, we're going to win this fight. if we were just doing one vote at the end of the day, the insurance industry would probably be able to snuff it out. but you keep doing it, building up support. we have a good chance of winning. >> your public option bill and senator rockefeller's public option bill are different, they're both for the public option, but they have different approaches. will you vote for both amendments? >> yes. i will. senator rockefeller's is stronger, it's more like medicare. i would prefer it, frankly. but my amendment called the level playing field option is the one that probably has the chance of winning tomorrow in

the finance committee and elsewhere. and if we were to get a public option in the finance committee, as i said, it's an uphill but hardly a forlorn or lost fight, that would guarantee that there be a public option in the final bill, because of the five committees that have dealt with health care, four have put public options in their bill. >> so it's -- since you're the senator from new york, i can make this lame joke, but if it can make it there, it can make it anywhere. >> you betcha. >> one last question for you. if, we tend at the end of the day, what you're voting on in the full senate is a health reform bill that doesn't contain a public option, will you say now that you vote against that? it that would do a lot to add pressure to the -- to the forces that want a public option in the bill. >> right. well, those of us who are in the lead on health care have decided we're not going to draw a line in the sand, but we're certainly not going to say we will vote for a bill without a public option. we're fighting hard for the public option.

obviously, you have to look at the overall bill. what are the affordability provisions, how does it treat middle class workers, how does it treat the states with medicaid? how does it treat children, and make an overall judgment? but public option will be very important to me in deciding whether to vote for final passage. >> we'll know a lot more about whether that's going to happen based on what starts tomorrow. senator chuck schumer, thank you for your time tonight. i know you're busy right now. >> thanks, bye-bye. >> the republicans are a very, very, very small minority in the house and senate right now. and that is why it is ultimately democrats, liberal, moderate and conservative democrats who will decide what kind of health reform we get or if we get it at all. learning tomorrow who is going to be on record in favor of these various types of the public option will be a big part of knowing what democrats are ultimately going to come up with. but that is not stopping republicans from trying to stop the whole health care reform process all together. and the way they're trying to stop the process is by slowing

the process down so much that it just dies from sheer boredom. or exhaustion. consider the 564 amendments that have been filed on just this one version of the bill in just one committee. 564 amendments that all have to be discussed and voted on. how long will that take? well, here is a sense of how the pacing was going as of yesterday. >> voted on -- about 25 amendments. and i look forward to an even more productive day. >> at 25 amendments per day for 564 amendments -- 23 work days to vote on all of them? and if today is the third day of hearings, five work days in a week, 30 days hath september, at this pace, i think this thing doesn't get voted on until october 26th for just this one bill in this one committee, if they keep up this pace, and that, of course, is exactly the point. opponents of reform are gung ho

about waiting. >> we need to slow down and get this right. we need to give the members of congress the time they need to understand what they're going to be voting on. >> the reasoning for slowing it down is that in washington, the way you kill a bill is to slow-walk it. and democrats know that. >> mr. chairman, let me just complete my thought here. >> you have about one minute, you'll complete your thought. okay. we've -- >> i'll complete my thought and then make another point, mr. chairman. >> this is delaying, senator. >> mr. chairman, i am not delaying. i'm making an extremely important point. >> it's very, very important point, but you're also delaying. >> very, very, very important point is that the republicans are delaying. that's their tactic, full stop. let's see if the democrats can pick up the pace. we'll be right pack.

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when it came time for my stun teaching, income could be a problem. it was the united states' census bureau that solved that problem when i wen to work in a permanent, but part-time position three years ago. i then took the plunge into western governors in august 2005. my job with fifth graders all day, doing census work for about 35 hours a month, keeping track of my son who was now 16. >> that was bill sparkman, delivering the commencement address at western governor's university in salt lake city,

utah last year after getting his teaching degree there. we thank the school for making that footage available to us. mr. sparkman was a par time fieldworker for the u.s. census. a single dad and cancer survivor who held down two jobs while he pursued the degree. september 12th mr. sparkman was found dead in the daniel boon national forest in southeastern kentucky. last night that, nearly two opinion week-old local news of his death became breaking national news when an unnamed law enforcement source told the "associated press" that mr. sparkman was hanged and that the word "fed," f-e-d, presumably as in federal government was scrawled on his chest when miss body was found. no second source has come forward at this point, and a kentucky state police spokesman said the initial report on the death contained some errors, but he would not give specifics on what the errors are. so we're left with a still

incomplete, still troubling story. here's what we know. mr. sparkman's body was found on saturday, september 12th. he reportedly had been dead since the morning previous, since the morning of friday, september 11th. a determination has still not been made by law enforcement as to whether his death was a homicide, a suicide or an accident, but police say it definitely was not natural causes. the cause of death has been ruled to be asphyxia. autopsy results are still pending. as to whether or not mr. sparkman was hanged, that detail is becoming complicated and hard to figure. the lexington "herald leader" says they were told by the police post that is leading the investigation of mr. sparkman's death that sparkman had a rope around his neck that was attached to a tree, but was not hanging in the traditional way that many people envision. the state police released a statement today that said mr. sparkman was found with a rope around his neck that was tied to a tree, but he was in contact with the ground. the fbi says it's working with local law enforcement on the

case, and, of course, it is a federal crime to attack a federal worker on the job. by and large, though, authorities are being tight-lipped about this investigation. we are meanwhile learning more from area residents about what kind of risks mr. sparkman might have been exposed to going door to door as a census fieldworker in that part of the country. and, of course, the question of whether anti-government sentiment might be a plausible motive for violent crime there. the daniel boone state forest where mr. sparkman was found has been known to have a history of drug-related crime, including growing marijuana and trafficking in meth. d. davis, who heads the center for rural strategies in had southeastern kentucky told the "associated press" today this is a dangerous time of year in that area, because people who grow marijuana are harvesting their crop now. mr. davis told the "a.p.," quote, there are places you would not send a census worker this time of year. also, a local retired state trooper says that when mr. spark mapp told him recently that he was going to be going door to

door for the census, state trooper told mr. sparkman to be careful, elaborating that the "electionington herald leader," quote, even though he was with the census bureau, sometimes people can view someone with any government agency as "the government." joining us now is that retired kentucky state trooper, gilbert achardo. he knew bill sparkman for 12 years, and was the first to report him missing. first of all, let me say i'm sorry for your loss, and thanks for being here with us today. you were a friend of mr. sparkman. sorry -- >> not hearing -- >> is he able to hear me? are we having an audio issue? >> no. >> oh, he can't hear me. mr. achardo is with a satellite truck in rural kentucky right now in front of kentucky state police building, and we're going to see if we can get our audio

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available in stores now. as we continue our reporting on the death of a par time u.s. census worker, in rural kentucky earlier this month, we're joined now by gilbert achardo, a former kentucky state trooper, retired now, knew the man killed in the

daniel boone national forest for 12 years. he was the first to report mr. sparkman missing. mr. achardo, first let me say i'm sorry for our technical issues, and i'm also sorry for the loss of your friend and thankful for you joining us here today. thank you, sir. >> thank you for having me. >> you told mr. sparkman to be careful when he was doing census work in the area in which he was eventually killed, and where his body was found. what were you telling him to be careful about? >> well, he's used to the london area that's a little more populated, and he was going into -- he told me he was going into counties like lee county and asly county when we did do his census work, and that's more rural, more isolated. a lot of places over there, you don't even have phone service. so it was a general statement from a friend -- friend to a friend, hey, just be careful when you're over there. >> were you worried about potential criminal activity in the area, were you worried about he would get in a car accident and not have cell service?

were you worried about people being specifically unhappy with him working for the census? what in particular made you worry about him going to that part of the state? >> well, really, just a couple of things. the road system over there is a little bit -- they have smaller roads over there, and i was just afraid for his safety on driving the roads. and i just -- i felt like he needed to, when he did his home visits, he needed to make sure people knew he was there to collect statistics. >> did he ever express any concern to you about his work with the census bureau, any problems he had ever had on the job? >> no. just the opposite. he really enjoyed his census work, and he said people were really good to him. >> in terms of this part of southeastern kentucky and specifically those counties that you were -- you had expressed some concern about him traveling to, are folks in this area familiar with the census, and

its purpose? i don't know if there is a way to generalize about that, but is there any fear that you're aware of that the census might be seen as sort of a government intrusion? >> no. i'm not aware. of course, it's been 12 years since i worked for the state police, and i wasn't aware of any problems then, and i'm not aware of any problems like that right now. >> in terms of mr. sparkman and your friendship with him and his state of mind, i understand that you saw him just a few days before -- before he disappeared. can you shed any speculation -- shed any light on the speculation that he might have killed himself? >> well, i can just tell you that i did see him a couple days before he disappeared, and he had a smile on his face, as he always did, and he was just happy to be there. >> there's also been some speculation in particular because of danielle boone state forest has been known to have marijuana growing, meth trafficking, some other drug

issues. there has been some speculation that this might not have had anything to do with his job. he might have been the victim of a drug-relied crime, might have stumbled on a drug-related scene. does that seem at all plausible to you? >> well, i think that's the big question that we have, at school, is, you know, what was the cause of death for mr. sparkman, and what was he doing over in that area? i'm not even sure that he was doing census work. i don't think that's been confirmed. so the big question is, what was he doing over there, and what was the manner of death, and the cause of death? >> gilbert acciardo, former state trooper in kentucky and friend of sparkman, his death receiving national attention. thank you for your time today, and you have all of our condolences on the loss of your friend, sir. >> thank you. >> okay. so there are smear campaigns in politics, and then there's what's happening to a community

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it may seem like the only thing happening in congress these days is the never-ending fight over and of health reform, but if you happen to be watching the house floor at 3:00 this afternoon, this is what you would have seen. >> who has consistently called for the clean-up of the corrupt a.c.o.r.n., the criminal enterprise, a.c.o.r.n. and all of their affiliates? it's been people on the republican side of the aisle that have done that. this is the star of a.c.o.r.n. he is -- he is the lead chief organizer. he is the -- he is the person who told the people at a.c.o.r.n., i will invite you into the -- and we will be setting the agenda for america, even before he is inaugurated as president of the united states. this is the man who worked for

a.c.o.r.n. >> this is the star of a.c.o.r.n.! that was paranoid republican congressman steve king of iowa. today railing against the community organizing group a.c.o.r.n., and falsely accusing president obama of being a.c.o.r.n.'s lead chief organizer! this sort of animous toward a.c.o.r.n. has been percolating for a long time, but broken open recently as democrats in congress decided to go along with efforts to dee fund and demonize a.c.o.r.n. and some republican governors have enthusiastically defunded a.c.o.r.n., as well, despite the fact those governors didn't fund them in the first place. thanks for the right wing crusade against it. a.c.o.r.n. has become a household acronym, and republican america's most reliable trumped up bogeyman. it was the sixth most covered story in the country last week. a.c.o.r.n. has been caricatured

by people as a company that steals elections and turns a blind eye to prostitution. that's the story line the media has latched on to, as well. what you might not know from all of the breathless a.c.o.r.n. damnation coverage is what a.c.o.r.n. actually does. they do things like advocating for a higher minimum wage. they do things like helping low-income families file their taxes. they do things like helping low-income families find jobs. they register people to vote. that sort of work, as you might expect, has the tendency to rile up the kinds of industries that don't want minimum wage to go up and aren't that psyched about lots of poor people being registered to vote. and as we discovered most recently in the health care debate, when industries sense a threat to their profits, they go into kill mode. they create corporate-funded purportedly grass roots oergss to derail and destroy whomever they believe to be the source of the threat. in the case of a.c.o.r.n., i would like you to meet richard berman, a washington, d.c.-based

lobbyist who is essentially a hired gun for corporations. say you're a company who doesn't want the minimum wage to be raised. but you also don't want to be seen fighting a.c.o.r.n. yourself. what you do is, you hire richard berman. and what you get is rottena.c.o.r.n..com. a grass rootsish looking website dedicated to destroying a.c.o.r.n. and its, quote, political thugs for hire. if you go to the bottom of the website, you'll see that rotten a.c.o.r.n..com is run by something called the employment policies institute, a nonprofit think tank that happens to be run by richard berman, who also happens to be the man behind grass roots-ish websites like the anti labor one, unionfacts.com. also, mercuryfacts.org. which assures people that there really isn't that much mercury in that fish. go ahead. because mr. berman's organizations are nonprofit, it's almost impossible to find out who pays him for his services. luckily for us, richard berman

is a bit of a chatty cathy. >> businesses themselves don't find it convenient to take on causes that might seem politically incorrect. and i'm not afraid to do that. you're not going to get a lot of companies who want to say that i'm funding rick berman to go after you. they're just not going to do it. >> but go after them, he does. richard berman heads a laundry list of more than a dozen front groups that ache on causes for business interests, like, say, the food and beverage industry. and, of course, it's perfectly fine for him to head up all of these nonprofit purportedly grass roots organizations. anyone in america has the right to lobe on anything to the all. the problem is the effect of corporate-funded pr efforts like rotten a.c.o.r.n..com has been a jihad launched against the right wing media which has since been joined by the mainstream media, minus any sort of real fact-checking of these corporate

organized facts about them. a new study just released by a pair of university professors reveals the embarrassing extent to which the media has gotten the a.c.o.r.n. story really, really wrong. as groups like rotten a.c.o.r.n..com bought full-page ads in the "new york times" to hype their voter registration scandal, news outlets picked up the story line and ran with it. about 80% of stories about a.c.o.r.n. voter fraud failed to mention that a.c.o.r.n. was the group that reported the irregularities in the first place. about 72% of stories about a.c.o.r.n. failed to quote anyone from the organization at all responding to the charges against them. and 11% of the stories made the blatantly false claim that barack obama once worked for a.c.o.r.n. a claim repeated on the house floor today by congressman steve king, a claim is not true. the media coverage of a.c.o.r.n. has been driven by a right wing campaign against it. a corporate-funded grass

roots-ish pr effort to plant the idea that a.c.o.r.n. is somehow a cancer on the democracy. and it's an effort that is working. last week, congress voted to cut off all federal funding for the group. yesterday, the irs severed ties with them all together. today a.c.o.r.n. laid off all eight employees it had in the great state of north carolina. the people who are paying rick berman for his work, those people who think that their profits are threatened by what a.c.o.r.n. does, they're getting way more than their money's worth. whatever they're paying rick berman. joining us now is one of the authors of the new study, "manipulating the public agenda: why a.c.o.r.n. was in the news and what the news got wrong," peter drier. professor drier teaches politics at occidental college in los angeles. thanks for coming on the show tonight. >> thank you, rachel. >> is there a connection that you can discern between the type of work that a.c.o.r.n. does and the people who started this campaign against them? which is now, of course, mushroomed into a national event? >> you know, a.c.o.r.n.'s made a lot of enemies in the four years

it's been doing organizing work in america's inner cities. banks that they have fought, insurance companies they have fought, low-wage companies that pay poverty wages, and companies that provide payday rip-off predatory loans. in fact, a.c.o.r.n. was the first group in the country to warn about the predatory lending. and if people had listened to a.c.o.r.n., if the policy makers had listened to a.c.o.r.n. when they were warning about this, we wouldn't have the foreclosure and mortgage meltdown that we have had in the last couple of years. so a.c.o.r.n. has made a lot of enemies. and when they have registered voters in low-income neighborhoods, disproportionately those people vote for democrats, although a.c.o.r.n. itself is nonpartisan. so the republican party in a lot of parts of the country has been against a.c.o.r.n. and they have been trying to destroy a.c.o.r.n. for many years. karl rove, as we now know, was responsible for starting a campaign to try to get the u.s. attorneys to prosecute a.c.o.r.n. for voter fraud.

and when the u.s. attorneys like david eglas as i say said there was no voter fraud, he fired him, because he wanted to get rid of a.c.o.r.n. so the media has picked up on this scene that a.c.o.r.n. is corrupt and a.c.o.r.n. is involved in voter fraud when the reality is, there was absolutely no voter fraud that a.c.o.r.n. participated in. but you would never know that by reading the "new york times" or the "washington post" or the "wall street journal" or other mainstream media. >> give me some sense of the distance between the truth of what happened with a.c.o.r.n. and the charges that led to them being smeared as a voter fraud organization. and the way that it's actually covered. what's the distance between the way the voter registration stuff is talked about, and what actually happened? >> okay, i'll give you an example. we looked at 600 stories, every story about a.c.o.r.n. in 15 major media outlets. and what we discovered was that in almost all of those stories, voter fraud was the major theme. a.c.o.r.n. has been doing this grass roots organizing for 40

years. and they've gotten some attention. but the attention really peaked during the presidential election last year when john mccain and sarah palin attacked a.c.o.r.n. for voter fraud. what really happened was that a.c.o.r.n. was registering voters in low-income neighborhoods, and a.c.o.r.n. would go around to neighborhoods and supermarkets and other places and have people fill out voter registration forms. and a handfulel of cases, people would write phony names. for example, mickey mouse or donald duck. and whenever a.c.o.r.n. found that one of those forms had a phony name on it, they did what they were required to do by law, which is to report the abuse. report the problem. so when a.c.o.r.n. did that, they weren't engaged in voter registration fraud, they were following the law. but then what happened is that -- in many parts of the country, the republican attorney general and district attorneys would accuse a.c.o.r.n. of making those phony claims, of making those phony names, instead of saying that

a.c.o.r.n. was, in fact, doing their job. so in almost every story about voter fraud, the mass media, not just the right wing media, but the mainstream media, failed to report that a.c.o.r.n. was abiding by the law, it failed to report that not one person in this entire country voted who actually signed one of those forms in a misleading way. so there was absolutely no voter fraud. there was some voter registration problems which a.c.o.r.n. reported. but despite that, john mccain, sarah palin, rush limbaugh, glen beck and the rest of the right wing media and the mainstream media, unfortunately, picked off this notion that a.c.o.r.n. is responsible for wide-scale voter fraud. and that's what you're seeing on the houses of the senate and the house on the floors of the house and senate this last week. you're seeing people basically following up on these misleading charges against a.c.o.r.n. >> the more that i look into the misleading nature of the charges against a.c.o.r.n., not just

from people from whom i expect misleading charges, but from reporters and mainstream media, people in the mainstream media who ought to know better, the angrier i get. and i think that we're going to be covering this -- the lies about a.c.o.r.n. over a number of shows, over -- over upcoming days, including talking specifically about this latest scandal about this entrapment video with people posing as a pimp and a prostitute. professor dreier, i hope you can come back again and understand how this flew after the rails over the next several days. >> sure. i would be happy to you. >> thank you. >> he is coauthor of an important new study about a.c.o.r.n., which we are posting a link to at our website, rachel msnbc.com. ooh, this story gets me mad. now for something nicer. baseball, jazz, the civil war. film maker, ken burns, doesn't mess around with the small stuff. his latest epic documentary is called "the national parks," and it will make you want to go to

the grand canyon tomorrow. and it will make you think big thoughts about america. and our national purpose. and the big thoughts that we have had as a country that really no one else has had before we had them. ken burns will be right here in studio in just a few minutes. stay with us. the regenerist results are in. [ male announcer ] best night cream, shape magazine. [ female announcer ] beauty editors are seeing results... [ male announcer ] best cleanser, essence magazine. [ female announcer ] good housekeeping research institute is seeing results... [ male announcer ] hydrates better than the $350 cream. [ female announcer ] but most importantly, women are seeing results.

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the u.n. security council has existed since 1946. since 1946, since it was founded, an american president has presided over the security council exactly once. today. president obama was the chairman, facilitator, pass me the talking pillow, presider guy over the u.n. security council today in new york. and for his trouble, he earned a 15-0 unanimous vote from the security council in favor of a little project he's got that he likes to think of as abolishing nuclear weapons worldwide. 15-0. now, this doesn't mean that all nuclear weapons go away. but it does mean that when obama gave that big speech in prague

saying america's vision, america's mission in the world was a world free of all nuclear weapons, he just got russia and china and britain and france and mexico and japan and uganda and all of the other security council countries to say that they are on board with that idea, too. not bad for a day's work. remember when george w. bush named a guy to be his u.n. ambassador who want he wanted to lop ten floors off the u.n. building? >> the secretary's building in new york has 38 stories. if you lost ten stories today, it wouldn't make a bit of difference. >> under george w. bush. that guy was america's man at the u.n. things are different now. and very, very different.

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so there is a stay forest near where i live and i take my dog on my walks there, like all my neighbors do. but to do that this year we have to walk past a sign that says "this state forest is closed for the whole year" because massachusetts is so broke this year they're not paying to staff and maintain the big parks and is popds, including by my house. ironically, my nearby state forest only exists today because of the last time that we were this broke! the great depression. when the government of franklin roosevelt decided they wanted to put people to work and stimulate the economy by creating a civilian conservation corps that would hire people. they hired 100,000 people in

massachusetts alone to build the roads and plant the forests and construct the camp grounds and the dams and bridges that gave the people of my state something great then that frankly is still really great now. generations later. even if we can't have rangers there this year. the documentary film maker ken burns puts this little piece of the creation of our national parks in perspective in his new beautiful mini series called "the national parks: america's best idea." check it out. >> over the course of the depression, more than 3 million men would find work at one time or another with the civilian conservation corps. they would build more than 97,000 miles of fire roads in national forests. combat soil erosion on 84 million acres of farmland, and plant 3 billion trees. more than one half the total

reforestation accomplished in the nation's history. during that time, some $218 million would be pumped into projects solely within the national parks. including trails and buildings that remain to this day. >> the depression is a golden age, because the national park service is a federal agency, and it's going to get all of franklin delanor roosevelt's let's rebuild the nation dollars. and the budgets of the national park service soared and as the national park service looks at projects that could put people to work, congress agrees, and franklin delanor roosevelt agrees and the national park service suddenly finds itself swimming in money relative to what it had in the 1920s. >> we are definitely in an era of building today. the best kind of building. the building of great public

projects for the benefit of the public and with the definite objective of building human happiness at the same time. >> building human happiness at the same time. big tracts of beautiful land set aside from private exploitation, not only for public use and for conservation, but as a repository, a preserve, a safe-kept lockette of what our country is, and the fact that is belongs to all of us together. what a good idea. the national parks, america's best idea, starts sunday at 8:00 eastern on pbs. and ken burns is here with us now to talk about it. ken burns, congratulations, and thank you so much for being here. i'm geeking out that you're here. >> other way around. >> well, congratulations. you have to be very proud of this. >> we're very, very excited. we have spent ten years working on it, six shooting. we have been to places where you think someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, hey, buddy, are you getting paid

for this, come this way. but building human happiness, governments now are essentially bad. there was a time when the government stepped in and made things better in every single way, that we could bring jobs, and money and a sense of cohesion. and that's what the parks -- they thrived during the depression, not just because the they got the first stimulus dollars, but because they brought americans together. and i think they still can do that. the idea is still durable, still plex flexible, still changing and evolving, just like all men are created equal and all white men are property, free of debt. we started by saving natural scenery and now a lot more. all these place that is reflect a complicated past, a past that we are in the screaming that goes on in talk radio we ignore today. but it's in our national parks. they're the repositories of us, not just the grand geological story. and what does -- i think that expansion of the idea of what we

preserve of what we preserve an protect and decide to pay for the upkeep of as a nation, that expanding to be not just the beautiful places, not just where half dome is, but also where we had slave cabins and the internment camps. what d s that expanding of the idea of what we respect say about what we have in value in common? >> we co-own all of this land and we co-own the beautiful spots, but we have to own our history well, and own up to it as well. so central high school, still a working inner city high school in little rock, arkansas, where the crisis of school desegregation crystallized is a union of the national park service. we have slave cabins that made the comfortable life of the plantation owner possible. all of these places we've been willing to include in our idea of who we are. i know of no other country on earth that's willing to look at that dark past.

yet now we reduce things into red state, blue state, black or white, male or female, in or out. and the parks right there, our best idea. >> on the idea of building human happiness, one of the things that is interesting ability the reception of this document compared to the other ones is people are reed raeding an ideological text in this. we have very much romanticized and we have come up with this great fable we tell ourselves about how we can pursue human happiness and our government should not restrict us from that. but the other part of the american dream is that our government believes policy can advance human happiness while protecting freedom. >> it always has. these national parks, this was an activist government going in and not intruding on individual rights, but expanding them. and that's what the parks tell us about. this is a bottom-up story of regular people who fell in love with the place from every conceivable background.

it's also the story of the richest of us, not hording the money in some greedy, selfish way, like ayn rand. this is people saying my god, we own beautiful scenery, shouldn't everyone have access to it? that's theodore roosevelt, the first director of the park service. these are people who are the eli elite, the richest people in the nation who sort of counterintuitively say let's share it with everybody. i mean, this is a great story that's not only bottom up, but top down. and it meets in the mid until the most spectacular landscapes on earth, which we all co-own. but think about what would happen if there were no national parks? you know, the grand canyon would be lined with mansions. the everglades would have long since been drained and filled with tract house houzing and ugly development. yosemite valley would be a gated community. yellowstone would become geyser world, something like that. we're talking about the

difference between pottersville and bedford falls. and we choosz in "it's a wond wonderful life" to live in bedford falls. but that selfishness is so much what america is about. you know what? it's not what we're about. it's about common wel, a wonderful idea, and not socialism. if it's socialism, then the people you call at 3:00 a.m. when your house is on fire, that's socialism. the people in afghanistan risking, their lives that's social itch. the people picking up your trash, that's socialism. >> we're so afraid of that word we can't talk constructively about government without butting up against it at this point. we will get over that, we're just having a national tantrum. >> a little hiccup. it's such a pleasure to have you here. . >> it's worth every minute of your time.

it premiers this sunday on pbs. coming up on "countdown" michael moore joins keith to talk about his new film -- capitalism -- a love story." and kent davis delivers just enough chuck norris. that is next, stay with us. tdd# 1-800-345-2550 yeah, i know what you mean... tdd# 1-800-345-2550 when my broker said, "i make money when you make money," tdd# 1-800-345-2550 he neglected to mention tdd# 1-800-345-2550 he also makes money when i lose money, tdd# 1-800-345-2550 withdraw money or do nothing with my money.

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and some eye problems. tell your doctor if you have a heart condition or high blood pressure before taking advair. we had a great day, grandpa! we sure did. ask your doctor how advair helps improve lung function for better breathing. (announcer) find out how to get your first full prescription free at advaircopd.com. we turn now to our fourth vengeance correspondent, mr. kent jones. >> the conservative protest needs leadership. fortunately a man has stepped forward. a texas ranger named walker. iechl oh, no. >> actor, martial artist, pillar of modern conservatism, chuck

norris is a man of opinion. so obviously when he proposes a new idea, my job is to shut my pie hole. in order to keep the 9/12 revolutionary movement charging forward, he urges his patriots to abandon the flag for the betsy ross flag. don't tread on me. that means you, affordable health care. >> and here's the kick e, if you insist on posting a modern usa flag, too, then get one that's tea-stained to show your solidarity with our founders. he didn't specify if it should be earl gray, ulong, orange pico, just probably not english breakfast. i want to take his flag idea one step further. how about old chuckie? or the rattle chuck?

or the united states of chuck. final score, chuck norris one. tyranny, zero. >> desecrate that flag, america. >> yeah. >> they're getting so weird. ahmadinejad, president of iran, protestors turning everything green. they ran mile-long banner down the brooklyn bridge today to protest against hill. and there was this happy coincidence they asked for the empire state building to turn green. they said no but it was going to be green anyway for the anniversary of "the wizard of oz." but it's not. that is a live shot of the empire state building. it's red. they say it's still for the wizard of oz but now it's red instead of green.

>> what about the "wizard of oz" people. >> come on. we're looking into it. "countdown" starts right now. which of these stories will you be talking about tomorrow? health wars. what do you call of a fight between a senator who wants no reform and one who boosts insurance profits. you call it damn entertaining. >> make another point, mr. chairman. >> mr. chairman, i am not delaying. i'm making an extremely important point. >> it's very important, but you're also delaying. >> republicanss go into a stall that borders on a sit-in. the most transparent pro corporation proposal yet. >> we wow at least 72 hours for the people that the providers have hired to keep up with all the legislation that we pass around here.

>> the people that the health care providers have hired to keep up with all the legislation. that would be you, senator. and the other republicans and baucus over there. senator jay rockefeller on the fate of real health care reform. howard fineman on the pure politics of total inertia and jonathan alter on the newest republican brainstorm. senator demint says the president is ignoring more important stuff. >> he's working on other issues such as health care and he's putting off the decision on afghanistan, which i think puts our troops at risk. so he needs to focus on priorities right now. >> like getting more money to the corporations. who's thinking about the corporations. will somebody think about the corporations? our special guest tonight, as his new movie "capitalism" premiers, michael moore. >> we're here to get the money back for the american people. >> i have some bags. >> sarah palin on her next job or whatever. >> i wish i could predict the future. i can't answer that question right now. >> and